Page 39 of Her Name in Red
A single knock on the door, then the sound of the doorknob jingling. I don't look up as the door swings open. I don't need to. I know exactly who it is, down to the pattern of his breathing.
“Hey,” Riggs calls out, kicking the door shut behind him.
The smell hits me immediately—salt and grease and everything wonderful about late-night fast food. My stomach growls, betraying me even though I just ate that sad excuse for butter chicken twenty minutes ago.
Riggs stands before me, his hair still darker and damp from his post-game shower, that stupid grin spreading across his face. He's holding up a paper bag that's already developing translucent spots where the grease is seeping through.
“I got you fries, and a Dr. Pepper anyway, you damn nightmare,” he says, tossing the bag onto my lap.
Something twinges in my gut, and it's not hunger. First the homemade lasagna, and now this—food I didn't ask for but secretly wanted. Like he's reading my fucking mind or something.
I open the bag, trying to look bored even as saliva floods my mouth. “I already ate,” I say, shoving a fry between my lips and immediately reaching for another.
“Yeah, I can see that,” Riggs says, eyeing the dirty plate in the sink as he walks to the refrigerator. “Let me guess; it tasted depressing?”
“Whatever,” I mumble through a mouthful of fries.
He snorts, grabbing himself a beer before dropping onto the couch beside me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his body. He always runs hot, like he's got a furnace inside him instead of organs.
“That game was brutal,” Riggs says, stretching his long legs out and propping his feet on my coffee table. There's a bruise forming on his forearm, a deep purple bloom against his tan skin.
I crack open the soda, the carbonation hissing into the air between us. “I saw you got two goals,” I say, trying to sound casual, like I hadn't been obsessively checking the score updates throughout the night.
His eyebrows shoot up. “I knew you liked watching me.”
“Don't flatter yourself. I check the scores sometimes. Purely for research purposes.” I take a long sip of Dr. Pepper, thesweetness coating my tongue, the carbonation a small explosion of bubbles. “Gotta have material to talk shit about your game.”
Riggs stares at me for a beat too long, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. He's reading between my lines again, peeling back layers I didn't invite him to touch.
“Research purposes,” he repeats, popping the cap off his beer with the edge of my coffee table. I should be annoyed at the tiny nick it leaves in the wood, but I'm not. “Right. Like how you just happened to text me 'don't fuck up the power play' right before the second period?”
I shrug, focusing intently on selecting the perfect french fry from the cardboard container. “Coincidence.”
“And the 'nice goal, asshole' text thirty seconds after I scored?”
“ESPN app notifications.”
“Bullshit,” he laughs, the sound filling up the small space of my apartment like it belongs there. “You were watching. Admit it, Marino. You're becoming a hockey fan.”
I roll my eyes so hard I'm surprised they don't get stuck looking at my brain. “I'm becoming a fan of watching grown men beat the shit out of each other on ice. There's a difference.”
“That's the gateway drug,” Riggs says, reaching over to snag a fry from my container. His fingers brush mine, calloused and warm. “First it's the fights, then you're suddenly caring about penalty kills and zone entries.”
I pull the fries away, clutching them to my chest like they're precious cargo. “Get your own food, Rhodes. I thought there was more in that bag.”
He leans closer, and I catch a whiff of his soap—something clean and vaguely woodsy that shouldn't work with the lingering scent of arena sweat but somehow does.
“There is,” he says, voice dropping lower. “But yours always taste better.”
I hand him the grease-stained bag, ignoring the flutter in my stomach that has nothing to do with hunger. “Take your fucking chicken sandwich before I change my mind.”
He digs into the bag, pulling out a wrapped bundle that's almost comically small in his hands. The way his face lights up at the sight of food is almost childlike.
The smell of meat and cheese fills the apartment, making my stomach growl again despite myself.
“Want a bite?” he asks, catching my stare.
“I'm fine with my fries,” I say, clutching the red cardboard container like it's a shield.
